Moving Up
by ZVArmy
Summary: It has taken a year for Ronda Rousey to deal with her failure to win the gold medal for women's judo at the 2008 Olympics. She has now found fresh determination to train and to become the best in the world, this time in MMA. There is no doubt in her mind that she is moving up in the world. All she has to do is quit her three jobs. *Seth/Ronda story 6 of 11*


I would like to advise potential readers that this story has just been rewritten. The first story in this series was first written more than two years ago. Looking back at the series as a whole, I realised that it needed a lot of work to bring it up to standard, especially with regard to the grammar. Rewriting all of these stories is a considerable undertaking, which will take me some time. Thank you in advance for your patience.

The current status of the rewrite is as follows:

 **There's A First Time For Everything - Rewrite complete**

 **Opposite Extremes** (One shot which fits in after chapter 9 of There's A First Time For Everything) - **Rewrite complete**

 **Faces - Rewrite complete**

 **My Fight - Rewrite complete**

 **The New Order - Rewrite complete**

 **Moving Up - Rewrite complete**

 **Broken Arrow**

 **Revolutionary**

 **Time to Say Goodbye**

 **A Night To Remember**

* * *

Failing to win the gold medal for women's judo at the 2008 Summer Olympics had been such a severe blow to Ronda Rousey that it had taken her more than a year to deal with it. Losing was not something that Ronda had ever been allowed to accept. Her mother had drilled that into her from a very young age. The worst part of what had happened in Beijing was that in Ronda's opinion, she had only lost her first round match because of a bad call by the referee. That call had ended her quest for the gold medal and that was the bitterest pill of all to swallow.

Having to work three jobs just to try and make ends meet was not a position that anyone wanted to be in, and Ronda was no different. Even so, it was the position that she _was_ in. With no help from her mother or sisters, who she currently wasn't even in contact with, Ronda's living expenses and her need to run a car meant that she would have been in constant trouble financially without spending almost every hour God sent at one of her jobs.

In the mornings, she would work a shift as an assistant at a local veterinary practice. There was then an afternoon and evening shift in a bar called O'Bannion's, which was tiring enough by itself, but when she finished working at the bar, Ronda's day still wasn't over. Before she could head home for a precious few hours of sleep, she had to head over to another gym and teach a night class in judo.

For a year, Ronda had lived like that, but then with one conversation everything had changed. Thanks in part to support and encouragement from some of her friends, she was now back in serious training. This time, however, she wasn't training in judo, she was training in MMA. On more than one occasion, the group of friends, who were all members of the same gym, had sat and watched women's amateur MMA fights, and on one occasion Ronda had voiced the thought that kept repeating itself relentlessly in her head every time she watched other women fight.

"That could be me," she had said. "I could kick those girl's asses, no problem."

Everyone had agreed, encouraging her to give MMA a real shot. In Ronda's mind, giving it a shot was not what she was going to do. Giving things a shot wasn't how she had been raised. Being the best was the only thing that was acceptable. You either finished first, or you had failed. Ronda _knew_ that she had been better than any of the other women at the Olympics. She _knew_ that she was better than any of the women in MMA. The day would come when UFC approached her and asked her to be one of the first women to fight for their company. Dana White would come to her himself and ask her to sign for him. There was no doubt at all in her mind about any of those things.

The biggest problem she had with the MMA training was simply trying to make the time to do it while also juggling three jobs. That was where she had gotten lucky. A local businessman who knew her new trainer had heard about Ronda and her considerable talent. He had taken a keen interest in her and her potential career in MMA, leading to him making an offer of sponsorship shortly after meeting her for the first time. In exchange for a percentage of Ronda's future earnings from any MMA promotion including UFC, her living expenses and any costs relating to her training would be taken care of for her until the time came when she was signed to a professional contract. It was an offer that Ronda had felt that she simply could not refuse. She had no doubt that she had the talent to be the best female fighter on the planet, but no amount of talent would give her the money she needed to live as well as to train to the extent that was required to make it anywhere close to UFC.

With the sponsorship agreement having been finalised and signed off on by both parties the previous week, today, Monday, was the day that Ronda was going to quit all three of her jobs. The veterinarian practice had accepted the news graciously that morning and the staff had all wished her well. When she had returned to her car, a beaten up Honda which had the notable features of a truly ridiculous number of miles on the clock, a back seat full of unwashed clothes and gym equipment, and very distinct smell of sweat and Ronda's dog which would sleep in there quite often, she had sat and cried for several minutes. Working with animals had been something that she had truly enjoyed doing and she had gotten along well with the rest of the staff at the practice. Giving up that job had been a very difficult thing to do.

As she walked into O'Bannion's early that afternoon, however, there were no such feeling of sadness or reluctance to give the job up. She had always hated working there, hated the guy who owned the place, and hated almost all of her colleagues as well. One thing that Ronda could not stand was being talked down to or ordered around by people, and that seemed to her to be something that happened much too often at O'Bannion's. The way she saw it was that these people, especially Phil, who owned the place, thought that they were better than her. Phil thought that he was something special because he owned some shitty bar. Ronda considered that to be embarrassing on his part. She was determined that one day they would all learn. Everyone who had ever doubted her or spoken down to her would learn. Ronda Rousey was something special, and they most definitely were not.

It was with great satisfaction that she walked into the bar wearing jean shorts and a white muscle tee with the American flag on the front. There was a hole torn in one side of it. It was about as far from the bar's much more formal looking black uniform as she had been able to get when carefully selecting the outfit that morning. Rather than heading for the staff room to punch in, which she would never have to do again, Ronda took a seat at the huge rectangular bar which was the centrepiece of the establishment. There was no member of staff in sight, which told her that whoever was working the bar was serving on the opposite side of it which she could not see as there was reflective glass bearing the name O'Bannion's behind the bar on all four sides. The place smelled of polish, reminding her of one of the many things that she had hated about the job. Even when there were no customers to serve, the staff were expected to find other things to do, such as polishing the wooden tables. Ronda had never been and never would be a domestic goddess by any means. Polishing tables and washing dishes were not things that she liked to do on her own time, let alone at work.

Ronda glanced around the place for what she knew would be the final time. There were not many customers in, which presumably had as much to do with the poor weather outside as the time of day. Two drunken sounding old men were having a shouting match over some irrelevant nonsense at a nearby table. A woman who Ronda thought looked amusingly like a hooker was sitting at another table with an older man opposite her. The sight made Ronda smile as her imagination began to come up with a possible conversation that they might have been having.

Another customer walked in and up to the bar. Ronda recognised the grey haired guy as one of the regulars, but she didn't know his name. He glanced at her and offered a vague smile of recognition which she acknowledged in turn with a slight nod. She was pleased to see that none other than Phil himself walked around the bar a few seconds later to serve the new arrival. Ronda saw Phil glance at her, but he didn't acknowledge or speak to her while he had served the customer with his drink of choice. Ronda looked at the man who was soon to be her former boss and had to suppress a laugh at his appearance. He was in his forties, overweight and had slicked back black hair and a goatee which looked like it had recently been badly trimmed. She also took satisfaction in noting his rapidly receding hairline.

The customer walked away with a beer in hand. Phil turned to Ronda and gave her a once over. "What have you come as?" he asked sarcastically, his expression indicating that he found what he saw distasteful.

"Sorry?" Ronda replied, tilting her head sideways slightly, pretending that she hadn't heard the question.

Anger already began to creep into Phil's voice. "I _said_ what have you come as? Where's your uniform? You're not working in my bar dressed like that. Did you buy those clothes or find them?"

"Well, you're right about one thing," Ronda smirked. She intended to savour every word of what was to come next. "I'm not working in you bar dressed like this. In fact, I'm not working in it again at all. Do you know why? Because I've got myself sponsorship. I'm going into MMA full time. In time I'm going to get myself signed up to UFC. Not only that, I'm going to become the biggest star in UFC. So what I'm telling you is, I quit. You can shove your stupid bar and your crappy job..."

To Ronda's surprise, rather than lose his cool, Phil cut her off by laughing at her. "Ah, I get it," he said, nodding his head and grinning. "You've been smoking crack. Must be some good shit, too, wherever you got it from."

The insult and sarcasm caused Ronda's blood to boil instantly. She jumped up and yelled at Phil, "Listen to me you fat cunt! I'm moving up in the world! The day's going to come when you see me on TV. When you do, you'll know that I have more money than you'll ever make running this shit hole, even if you do it until the day you drop. The name Ronda Rousey is going to be known worldwide. You can tell me I'm smoking crack all you want, but right now I'll make you a promise, _Phil_. I'm going to go away, make myself a star, make myself more money than you can even image, and when I've done that I'm going to come back here. I'm going to come back here, buy this fucking dive and have someone tear the fucking place to the ground! I'm going to stand out there in the street and watch it happen, and I'm going to love every single fucking second of it!"

By the end of her rant, Ronda's cheeks had gone red and her hands were balled into fists by her sides. Everyone within earshot had stopped what they were doing and diverted their attention to the irate looking woman who was yelling so loudly and making a scene. By contrast, Phil was still laughing, now even harder than before. "You know why no one likes you around here, Rousey? I'll tell you. It's because you're a fucking basket case. No, I'll tell you exactly what you are: you're a narcissist. You think you're fucking great and everyone else is below you. Let me be the one to tell you that you ain't ever making big money doing that stupid kung-fu shit, or whatever it is that you do. You're going to end up alone, miserable, and in the funny farm. That's where you belong ,too, the sooner the better. Now get out. You're fired."

Ronda snorted derisively. "Are those ears painted on? You can't fire me. I already quit. Fuck you and fuck your stupid bar."

With that, Ronda stormed out of the building with a satisfied smile on her face. Little did she know that in just over a month's time she would have re-established contact with her family, or that doing so would have indirectly lead to her lying in a hospital bed with a broken neck, her dreams of stardom and a professional MMA career seemingly gone forever.


End file.
